- Understanding the SharePoint Server Roles
- Understanding the Reasons for Deploying Multiple Farms
- Choosing the Right Hardware for SharePoint
- Determining Optimal Operating System Configuration
- Planning for Database and Additional Software
- Examining Real-World SharePoint 2013 Deployments
- Addressing Common Business Issues with SharePoint Features
- Deploying a Team Collaboration Solution with SharePoint
- Deploying a Corporate Intranet Solution with SharePoint
- Deploying a Customer Extranet Solution with SharePoint
- Summary
- Best Practices
Determining Optimal Operating System Configuration
The core of a functioning SharePoint environment is the operating system that SharePoint runs on. All servers in a SharePoint farm require the Windows Server operating system. The following versions of Windows Server are supported:
- Windows Server 2008 R2, Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter, x64 with Service Pack 1
- Windows Server 2012, Standard or Datacenter, x64
Windows Server 2012 Operating System for SharePoint
The most optimal, secure, and performance-tuned operating system for SharePoint is Windows Server 2012, which has built-in security enhancements to Kerberos and also handles client/server communications traffic better than earlier versions of Windows, making it ideal to host SharePoint servers. For any new SharePoint farm deployments, you should highly consider the use of Windows Server 2012 for these reasons where possible. An alternative to Windows Server 2012 is Windows Server 2008 R2 w/SP1.